


Watching You Watching Me

by ChillinLikeVillains



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Private Investigators, Gratuitous use of the f-bomb, Percival has a potty mouth when he's exasperated, Pre-Slash, Sorry Not Sorry, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-15
Updated: 2015-07-15
Packaged: 2018-04-09 13:09:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4350008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChillinLikeVillains/pseuds/ChillinLikeVillains
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Percival loves and hates his job, makes bad life decisions, substitutes sleep with coffee, and really needs to stop listening to Eggsy and Roxy's conversations.</p>
<p>Inspired by the prompt: "Percival and James!Lancelot are private investigators whose sole task is to track the other's every move."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watching You Watching Me

He had been sitting outside of the bowling alley for six hours. Six. Fucking. Hours

He didn’t even think it was possible to stay entertained at a fucking  bowling alley for two hours, much less six, and if the stupid bastard he was tracking hadn’t been  so damn difficult  to keep track of and given him a proper challenge, he would’ve abandoned the job no matter the pay just because it’s a  fucking bowling alley and it’s been  six fucking hours .

Normally Percival would’ve assumed the mark had gotten by him somehow, but he is one of the best at what he does and  there is no way in hell this fucker managed to give him the slip not after successfully tracking him for eight months. Fuck. No.

At first he had been reluctant to track this particular man. He had so many aliases that Percival spent two weeks alone sifting through them, trying to find the one identity that didn’t collapse under his  extremely  thorough searches. When he finally found it, he almost picked up the phone to call Arthur to cancel the job. Then he realized exactly how big of a challenge this would be and how long it had been since he had undertaken a proper investigation (nearly as long as the last time he had been properly laid and  oh my god he has got to stop spending time with Galahad’s protege he’s almost as bad as his niece and he’s starting to pick up the boy’s vocabulary ).

James Lance was a fellow investigator, and quite good too. Apparently he had once been offered a job at Kingsman, a private investigation agency and Percival’s current place of employment. After he and a fellow recruit, Lee Unwin, had been caught by a mark they were investigating and shot at by the man’s security force, Lance had gotten out of the game entirely and gone underground. Unwin had been injured, almost died in fact, but survived the attack and joined the agency once his physical therapy was done. Whether Lance knew this or not is unknown, but when he resurfaced in  Kentucky of all places, Arthur had asked Percival to keep an eye on the man to make sure he wasn’t going to cause any trouble for Kingsman. Not that he bothered to inform  Percival of Lance’s history with Kingsman, which was the only reason they were observing the man in the first place

Due to Percival’s unassuming nature and ability to blend into the background better than most of his colleagues (god only knows how many bar fights Kay had gotten into simply because he flirted with the wrong man’s girlfriend while on a job) he was typically given the jobs that took place in a more civilian setting. Granted they held far less danger than the military operations Galahad often observed, but they tended to get boring after two dozen in a row. So Percival set the phone back down, and settled himself in for a real challenge.

And what a challenge it was.

James Lance had to have some kind of training because it  simply wasn’t natural for a man his size to be able to disappear so easily . He had managed to keep Lance in his sights for the most part these past months, but every day, without fail, he somehow managed to fall off the grid for  hours  before popping back up like a goddamn whack-a-mole (he really needed to stop listening to Eggsy and Roxy’s conversations. It’s getting ridiculous how much he’s beginning to mimic their speech). During those hours Percival would refuel on black coffee and food from whatever restaurant was closest. Every few days he’d check in with Merlin and stop by the flat he was renting for a fresh set of clothes, but other than that he just looks for the stupid yet gorgeous (he  really  needs to stop listening to Eggsy and Roxy) fucker who has given him the most challenging mission he’s had in  months.

It was almost like Lance just  stopped existing  for those hours before reappearing right where he disappeared from. It was unnerving.

Then again, the man had almost been a Kingsman. His organization only took the best of the best, so it would only make sense that the man was good at disappearing when it suited him. God only knows how many times Percival has allowed himself to blend into the crowd to get away from a mark who had caught sight of him  one too many times for it to be coincidence.

Percival would’ve been impressed if it hadn’t made his job  so bloody difficult .

In fact, Percival was so caught up in trying to find a way to track the man in question down in case he  had  slipped away that he failed to notice his passenger side door opening and shutting and said man settling himself into the passenger seat. It wasn’t until the man spoke that he even noticed his presence (Percival blamed the lack of awareness on two hours of sleep and not enough coffee to compensate).

“I don’t know whether you have the patience of a saint or are more stubborn than a donkey, but six hours? At a  bowling alley ?” Percival whipped his head to the side just in time to see  the man he was  supposed to be watching who was now in his fucking car smirk as he said, “Even  I  can’t keep myself entertained that long, and that’s  saying  something.”

Then he looked Percival straight in the eye and said, “Pleasure to meet you. My name is James Lance, but you already knew that. Feel free to call me James. And I have had the pleasure of watching  you watch  me  for the past eights months. How do you do?”

And then the motherfucker held out his hand and  smiled like he hadn’t just dropped a fucking  atomic bomb on all the work Percival had put into the last eight months, and so Percival did what anyone would do in his situation.

He punched the wanker right in the throat.


End file.
